Posted on 11/09/2005 4:51:43 PM PST by Former Military Chick
The Jefferson City radio talk show host accused of poisoning his wife formerly worked for two Kansas City radio stations and the Learning Exchange.
James P. Keown was charged in Massachusetts with murdering his wife, Julie Keown, 31, by lacing her Gatorade with a chemical found in antifreeze. He was arrested in Jefferson City on Monday and agreed to be extradited to Massachusetts for trial.
Adam A. Kretowicz, Keown’s attorney, said Tuesday that Keown “absolutely denies that he had any involvement in her death. They were deeply in love with each other.”
Keown, 31, was host of a talk show on KLIK radio in Jefferson City. He graduated from high school in Jefferson City in 1992 and later worked at news radio stations KCMO and KMBZ, where he eventually produced the morning news show and was known on air as J.P. O’Neil.
“J.P. is the friendliest guy in the world,” said KMBZ morning co-anchor Ellen Schenk. “Nobody knew how to network better than J.P., and that’s the reason he moved up so fast.”
Chris Hoffman, program director for KCMO, declined to comment Tuesday on Keown’s time at the station.
Keown also was once employed by the Learning Exchange, a nonprofit educational consulting firm, according to Martha Coakley, Middlesex district attorney in Massachusetts.
Officials of the Learning Exchange did not return a call Tuesday for comment.
By TONY MESSENGER
JEFFERSON CITY - Leave it to a mother to ask the tough questions.
A year ago, long before any of his friends suspected their pal and colleague was a murderer, James Keown’s mother entertained the thought.
Betty Keown wondered why police seemed to be interviewing everyone except her in the month after her daughter-in-law’s death. Julie Keown died in September 2004 after a monthslong battle with mysterious symptoms including vomiting, nausea and an unexplained rash on her leg. She lapsed into a coma on Sept. 4 and never recovered.
Investigators knew then what we all found out Monday afternoon.
Julie Keown was poisoned with a chemical found in antifreeze. She was given a lethal dose hours before she died.
When she died, investigators interviewed her husband, James. They talked to neighbors. They talked to Julie’s family.
Betty Keown sat back and watched. Then she connected the dots.
The cops must suspect her son.
That’s what she said yesterday morning when she called in to KLIK radio to talk about her jailed son. I was sitting in the studio where Keown broadcasted his daily Party Line show, talking to his listeners, telling them about their usual host being arrested while he was on the air.
His mother called in to defend her son. She believes he’s innocent. In time, we’ll all know that, she pleaded.
But 11 months ago, she wondered enough to ask her own son whether he had killed his wife.
It’s not that she believed he was a killer. It’s not that she thought her own flesh and blood could be capable of such evil. But there was the poison. There were the unanswered questions. And there were the people the police were talking to. Why weren’t they talking to me, a worried mother wondered?
So she asked the question so many of his friends would like to ask now.
She asked Keown whether he had anything to do with his wife’s death.
"James started crying," she said. He asked his mother how she could believe such a thing. He talked of his love for Julie. "He said, ‘I could never hurt her.’ "
Law enforcement officials in Boston disagree.
Middlesex District Attorney Martha Coakley alleges Keown hurt his wife in the most sinister way: slowly poisoning her until she was incapacitated and then finishing her off with a fatal dose. They’ve charged the popular talk show host with first-degree murder.
Yesterday, he was still in the Cole County Jail, awaiting his trip to Massachusetts. That’s where his mother last spoke to him. She was in a judge’s chambers speaking to him via videoconference. The radio personality was on television, but not in the way he would have preferred. Dressed in the orange jumpsuit of a county prisoner, he spoke to his mother thanks to a judge’s generosity.
"I said, ‘I love you, Son,’ and he said, ‘I love you, Mom,’ " Betty Keown said. "He said, ‘Don’t worry, this has been hanging over our heads. I’m not guilty. Everything will be OK.’ "
It was little solace to a mom who feels cheated by the system. She thinks they have the wrong man.
She believed her son more than a year ago when he denied her deepest, darkest suspicions. She believes him now.
"We shall make it through this," she says. "This is my son."
Indeed, she pleads with the radio listeners: This could be your son. Try to understand what we’re going through.
Those of us who know Keown are doing just that. We’re trying to understand how such a big secret slipped by us all. We’re trying to understand how the Keown we know could be charged with such a heinous crime.
We’re wondering why none of us asked the simple, direct question posed by a mother worried about her son.
Did you do it?
No embalming fluid needed here.
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Maybe she was frigid and he didn't want her to totally freeze up.
If sounds as if he used pure ethylene glycol (colorless liquid) rather than anti-freeze, which contains a number of additives. I would imagine they could trace a purchase of that. Wonder where he got it?
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